Qualcomm executive says cloud won’t be enough to power AI

A Qualcomm executive cautioned Monday that the future of artificial intelligence will demand more power than what cloud services can provide. 

Qualcomm senior vice president Alex Katouzian was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Computex, an annual computer expo held in Taipei.

In his talk, Katouzian underscored how much data fueling a new class of edge devices using generative AI will require.   

A Gigabyte product is displayed during COMPUTEX Taipei, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade shows, in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2023. (REUTERS/Ann Wang / Reuters Photos)

“Artificial intelligence touches virtually every aspect of smartphone experience. It’s working in the background to enhance everything from photography, videography, gaming and power management to Modem-RF performance, malware detection, and so much more,” Katouzian said. 

Qualcomm, based in San Diego, California, has shipped more than 2 billion AI products to date, Katouzian said. 

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“As growth in the number of connected devices and data traffic continues to accelerate and data center costs climb, it simply won’t be possible to send everything to the cloud,” Katouzian said. “And for certain applications, you won’t want to do that, especially when your personal information is involved.” 

Katouzian predicted that AI performance will be a key metric consumers look for when purchasing a PC — similar to how they compare CPU and GPU performance. 

The swift rise of AI’s popularity has prodded many companies to leverage their AI-related services and the chips that process them. 

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On Tuesday, chipmaker Nvidia, which is deeply involved in AI in a number of areas, topped $1 trillion, reaching new highs of nearly $405 on the trading floor.